


The Beauty of the Stars

by Quinara



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Bodyswap, Futurefic, Gen, Poetry, Who Are You Ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-08
Updated: 2010-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-10 11:09:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinara/pseuds/Quinara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What can you trust when your instincts are gone?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beauty of the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Written for angearia's [Who are You Ficathon](http://angearia.livejournal.com/151134.html) and partially inspired by _[The Owl and the Nightingale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Owl_and_the_Nightingale)_.

So then the crystal blows, their mission's done,  
But Buffy finds herself across the room.  
She's looking back to where her body stands;  
Illyria is nowhere to be seen.  
She watches as the body she knows breaks:  
It falls upon its knees, hands covering face,  
Then starts to sob.

She stands apart and waits to feel the pain,  
The empathy for what's been done to her,  
But she feels nothing, calm with placid cool  
As eyes that surely can't be hers stay dry.  
The room is clean with stone surrounding them,  
But it's too small, oppressive on her space,  
And so she leaves.

The wind comes fresh upon her skin, the sky  
So bright in darkness and the courtyard's stone  
Correct to lie beneath her holy feet.  
Museums aren't her place, instead it's earth  
That should but wait on her magnificence  
And lie in silence to revere her while  
The green sings prayer.

She has no memory to echo full  
And resonant with how the past was played,  
But still she feels her skin remembers gold.  
Her muscles know the moves of ritual,  
The steps to take to dance epiphany,  
The swift, sharp pirouettes to shock and kill  
Each sacrifice.

Too many things are written in this flesh;  
It was the body once of someone young,  
But now the ages score their legacy  
In lines and grooves on hard blue carapace.  
Illyria is more than mind contained  
And limited by magic – she is here  
In Buffy's blood.

This mind rebels, however, takes control,  
Insists the black above can never be  
Important as the human pain she left  
To grieve alone inside. The present is  
A wicked place, but still she cannot let  
Another bear its burden while she stands  
Outside at peace.

So now, then, Buffy turns to face the curse  
Of human suffering. She turns on heels  
And walks up every step to stone façade,  
Through tall glass doors – the prison's lovely gate –   
And down the corridors to where she cries.  
Illyria is waiting, buckled still,  
Curled round her knees.

The air is full of magic; Buffy feels  
The way it burns and scratches at her face.  
She feels it more than her emotions, strange  
And foreign in the figure she can see,  
But still she makes entreaty, "Lyria,  
Look up, this pain's not yours," although she can't  
Believe that's true.

The first response is silence, grim and still.  
The God-King halts the thoughts that fill her head,  
The chemicals and blood that change the facts  
Of her position in this ugly world  
To all-consuming upset and distress.  
She musters strict command, then slow she tries  
To speak her thoughts.

"The heartache and the thousand natural shocks  
That flesh is heir to – Rupert Giles and I  
Once read those words to understand this state."  
Illyria looks up, her eyes awash  
With confluence of fear and misery.  
"But this abhors all comprehension, thought  
And logic fair."

"Come out into the night," then Buffy says  
While stretching forth a hand, "and see the stars."  
With queenly arm suborned, Illyria  
Accepts, "The stars are not as they once were."  
"They aren't." She will agree with that. "But I  
Would bet you'll understand the change  
As something new."

It's different, leading someone as a guide  
And Buffy feels more like herself again  
As she brings Blue, the skittish colt, away  
From vestiges of magic to the breeze.  
The sky's an autumn black, unlit by lamps  
As Willow's power cut still binds their light:  
They've only stars.

Illyria looks up and turns to see  
The sky turn with her, zodiac in waltz.  
She blinks tears out her eyes, distracted, says,  
"The years I ruled, the stars were not like this.  
They're forms were different, paying reverence,  
So unlike now – I feel I am prostrate  
Before their might."

It's true. The sky is great and wide above;  
The air twists high and climbs towards unknown  
Infinity. The air's caress is cool  
And wants to whisk her to their majesty.  
It seems that Buffy understands; the girl  
Of blue and red is nodding, though she's stood  
So stately tall.

"For years we thought the stars were masters – signs  
That ruled and signalled everything we were.  
Some people still have faith that's really true."  
When Buffy walked in Sunnydale, she walked  
Beneath the stars, and she remembers how  
They were companions to her pain and joy.  
She had faith then.

"Your body as my shell," Illyria  
Looks owlishly at Buffy, thinking hard.  
"Do you still feel as I, as you once felt?"  
When Buffy looks up to the field of stars  
She does not see what she once saw. Instead  
She sees the universe, with balls of gas  
In traffic lanes.

"This awe disturbs me deeply to my core,"  
Illyria now adds, her gaze turned up  
Again so she may see the sky in full.  
"That awe is not yours either," Buffy says,  
With more conviction than she spoke of pain.  
"But surely now you see the world has more  
Than hurt to give?"

"It does not give," Illyria replies.  
"It takes, it seizes tears and hooks my heart.  
This world is still your master, all of yours."  
Her eyes remain trained to the august stars,  
While Buffy at her side is free, observe.  
"No feeling is a blessing; here this life  
Is not my own."

"It never was," now Buffy must rejoin,  
Remembering quite dimly that she stands  
Inside a murder victim's stolen corpse.  
"Emotion, what you're feeling, that reveals  
What's true." Illyria will only scoff,  
"This sea of feeling is a lie, a thick  
Distorted lens."

Frustrated, Buffy looks towards the sky,  
But feels as though she sees beyond the stars,  
Beyond the galaxy towards the void.  
This is not sight in her possession, this  
Is something that will not appreciate the truth,  
Will only look and probe on further till  
There's nothing left.

"It's this that is illusion," she demands,  
Her skin alight with seasalt tingling,  
The crystal's magic that has struck on her  
Responding now, at last, to words that go  
Much deeper than conviction. "I could not  
Feel this, not ever." Then she shuts her eyes  
And is returned.


End file.
